Torre de Manila

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) could claim a moral victory in the Torre de Manila controversy when its power to issue cease-and-desist orders (CDO) in the name of heritage conservation was upheld by the courts.

Torre de Manila was cleared for construction by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) and Manila City Hall despite being located in a virtual “heritage zone” and surrounded by several structures declared as national historical landmarks by government itself, for which, according to the NHCP’s own guidelines, they should be protected from “visual obstruction” and aesthetic “competition.”
Moreover, such landmarks, according to the NHCP guidelines, should be protected from such threats as “adjacent construction activities that may adversely affect historic sites/structures.”